[p. 224] English Game which hight long Laurence. To play at Laurence = to do just nothing at all; to laze. Laurence is the personification of idleness. There are many dialect uses of the name, e.g., N.W. Devon ‘Lazy’s Laurence’, and Cornish ‘He’s as lazy as Lawrence’, vide Wright, English Dialect Dictionary.
Act I: Scene ii
[p. 234] Women must be watcht as Witches are. One of the tests to which beldames suspected of sorcery were put—a mode particularly favoured by that arch-scamp, Matthew Hopkins, ‘Witch-Finder General’—was to tie down the accused in some painful or at least uneasy posture for twenty-four hours, during which time relays of watchers sat round. It was supposed that an imp would come and suck the witch’s blood; so any fly, moth, wasp or insect seen in the room was a familiar in that shape, and the poor wretch was accordingly convicted of the charge. Numerous confessions are recorded to have been extracted in this manner from ailing and doting crones by Master Hopkins, cf. Hudribras, Part II, canto iii, 146-8:—
Some for setting above ground
Whole days and nights, upon their breeches,
And feeling pain, were hang’d for witches.
cf. again The City Heiress, Act i:—
Watch her close, watch her like a witch, Boy,
Till she confess the Devil in her,—— Love.
[p. 235] Count d’Olivarez. Gaspar Guzman d’Olivarez was born at Rome, 1587. For many years all-powerful minister of Philip IV; he was dismissed 1643, and died 20 July, 1645, in banishment at Toro.